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Tourism dwindles in CHT for law and order slide

BPC income falls to one-ninth in a year: Heavy toll on region's economy

MONIRUL Alam, Rangamati
Flow of tourists in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and income from tourism have fallen drastically due to deterioration in law and order in last one year.
This is also taking a heavy toll on the economy of the region.
The Parjaton Holiday Complex, a Bangladesh Parjaton Corporation (BPC) motel in Rangamati, earned about Tk one lakh last month against Tk nine lakh in January last year due to slide in law and order, its manager Md Fazlur Rahman told this correspondent.
Tourists are very sensitive to security. They cancelled hotel booking over telephone if any incident of violence, abduction, extortion or killing is reported in newspapers, he said.
Khan Academy, a school in Dhaka had booked the Rangamati BPC motel for three days from January 28 and paid Tk 30,000 as advance. But they cancelled the booking over telephone after seeing the news of killing of a tribal youth, he said.
A series of bloody clashes took places between supporters and
opponents of the CHT peace agreement in the last one year.
In the latest incident of violence, unidentified youths in a heist robbed foreign tourists from a resort at Bandarban and kidnapped its owner on Monday. The captors demanded Tk two core ransom. He is yet to be rescued.
On January 25 armed supporters and opponents of the CHT peace agreement clashed at Pukurpar in Naniarchar upazila, killing one person and leaving two others bullet-hit.
Scared tourists left the motel soon after the January 8 incident at Shapmara in Naniarchar upazila in which three persons were killed and 10 abducted, he said.
The scenic beauty, mountains and lakes attracted tourists round the year.
"But this year, the number is all time low since signing of the CHT peace agreement in 1997", said Md Selim, a shopkeeper at the Parjatan motel.
"Tourists used to flock here in hundreds with the beginning of winter. But we are passing bad days this year", he said.
"Rise in incidents of clash, abduction, extortion and the government's failure to contain those have decreased flow of tourists", said Abbas Uddin, proprietor of a Rangamati-based tourist guide, RangaTour.
"Even, when foreign tourists come to Dhaka to visit the hill districts, tourist guides there advice them not to come to the area and to go to other areas like the Shundarbans and Cox's Bazar", he said.
"Locals were making a booming business in crafts and garments made of indigenous raw materials as those were attractive to tourists. But many of them are now sitting idle", said Liton Dev, a teacher and a cultural activist.
Flow of tourists had increased as law and order improved after signing of the peace agreement that temporarily stopped decades of insurgency.
But peace in CHT became elusive as the tribesmen were divided, one supporting the agreement and the other opposing it, demanding 'full autonomy' for the region.
Even local people are not spared from extortion. On December 24, some forty people, most of them children from Champoknagar area in Rangamati town, went for a cruise in Kaptai Lake. As they went to at Balukhali to visit a horticulture farm, three indigenous youths come and called one of the guardians and told him, "You will have to purchase a Chhatra Parishad token".
Paharee Chhatra Parishad (PCP), a students' body backed by Parbattya Chattagram Jono Sanghaty Samity (PCJSS), is known as Chhatra Parishad.
"Finding no alternative we paid them Tk 100 to avoid any untoward incident", the guardian told this correspondent preferring anonymity.
He said the youths told him that they realise Tk 300 per boat from local visitors and Tk 500 from "outsiders".
When this correspondent brought this to the notice of PCJSS' Students Affairs Advisor Ushaton Talukder, he dismissed the allegation. PCP has no relation with those who extort money from tourists, he said.